It's all about recovery
About two years ago, a friend of mine from college asked me if I'd be interested in a half Ironman triathlon relay where I would do the run. At the time, the triathlon was a year away so I said that I would do it - thinking that there was plenty of time to train.
Six months before the triathalon, I got a call from my buddy and he said I think we have a chance of winning this thing.
Win!!!! What! No!
I’m hoping to Finish!
The image of my running ability in college persisted 20 years later. 20 years is a loooooong time.
He explained that in our age class we had a chance - if I could get to a 7:15 mile pace we could probably take the whole thing.
I initially thought the big difference in training now unlike college is that there just isn't enough time to do proper and extensive training given all of life’s time commitments.
The big difference is about time – but about recovery time not exercise time. The problem is the amount of time it takes to recover from training sessions. It now takes days to fully recover from workouts.
Training is about continually pushing your peak then recovering. Thus, increased recovery time means much longer to get in shape.
Replacing Youth with Deliberateness
This is the key for something as full body and intense as Parkour. There must be a huge body of literature on recovery. Time to seek it out.